


i can't make it to your wedding (i'll be at your wake)

by cryptidhearted



Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: M/M, Non-Consensual Kissing, Obsession, Pining, Unrequited Love, alex is very obsessed brian is not interested, brilex is onesided
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-23 18:50:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21324952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryptidhearted/pseuds/cryptidhearted
Summary: They were busy. He gets it. He’s been exceptionally busy, too. Brian’s got tests, lectures, internships to apply to, codes to crack and people to psychoanalyze—Alex knows this, pretty much, but only because he’s seen Brian around, in bursts of minutes and texts and short phone calls, “I’ve got plans tonight, sorry, I’ll catch up with you guys later.”But Seth and Jay were still sticking with their plans, give or take a few forgetful moments. It’s not suspicion that has settled on Kralie’s shoulders, but some sensation of disappointment. Brian wasn’t the sort of guy to cancel that often, and while Alex knows he’s got his reasons, he still doesn’t like it. So when he got the text that Brian had seen his flier and fully intended to audition, it was… mostly mixed feelings. He was looking forward to it, as he was always looking forward to one-on-one time with Brian, and a director needed to know his actors—but on the other hand, he felt quite doubtful Brian would show up in the first place, with how flaky he’s been lately.
Relationships: Alex Kralie/Brian Thomas, Brian Thomas/Timothy "Tim" Wright
Comments: 7
Kudos: 46





	i can't make it to your wedding (i'll be at your wake)

**Author's Note:**

> sometimes you have a scene in mind and you realize you have to justify it to yourself in other ways!
> 
> warnings for unrequited love (alex is crushing hard on brian, brian isn't interested), non-consensual kissing, intrusive thoughts, obsessive attraction, threatening with a gun. the usual operator nonsense. have you read enough of my fics yet to know my usual shtick? i'm sorry. the next thing will be all fluff, i promise.
> 
> [find me on tumblr!](https://cryptidhearted.tumblr.com/)

INT. ALEX’S CAR – DAY.

He’s arranged things perfectly, as far as he’s quite concerned. Alex Kralie has never considered himself to be a perfectionist, but things change every now and again, and the _Marble Hornets_ script has never been closer to a satisfying completion. Of course, rewrites and rewrites and rewrites again out of the picture, Alex is smugly certain he’s finally hit the nail on the head. His lead character is—charismatic, likable, friendly, somewhat tormented and the victim of a circumstance he brought upon himself— okay, so he’s not got a name yet, but Alex isn’t concerned about that just yet. Names can come later, they’ll come by inspiration, by a flash of genius, by—some baby name website later on, probably.

The window is rolled down as he passes through the wooded street, his fingers tapping on his steering wheel as he hums absentmindedly along with his radio. The breeze is unseasonably cool, but it’s comfortable. The road is empty, he’s comfortable, and he’s quite pleased with himself.

This is the final draft. He’s halfway through his second-to-last college year with a final draft of the script he’s been working on since freshman year of high school. The pieces are falling into place and he has his hero, his heroine, his charismatic best friend, a coming-of-age tale full of emotional turmoil and deep understanding, introspection and intimacy and okay, he managed to fit in that bonfire scene his kid sister had gotten so attached to because she liked the idea of the girl being dramatic and with a shadowy past, but he couldn’t blame her, the kid wasn’t even in middle school yet, and a dramatic heroine seems nice. He liked the idea of a little girl looking up to the character he made, and so the heroine was supposed to be that kind of dramatic and perfect—

The light changes last second and Alex hits the brake a little too hard as the song on the radio stops.

The DJ carries on talking and Alex reaches to turn the radio off entirely. They’ve only got a little while before he’s meant to start putting real work into his film, and Alex can only imagine what’s coming up. He’s going into starting the work he’s dreamed of for years, and the result will be what gets him into the industry. It’ll win awards somedays, he’s positive, now that he’s finished it. On top of getting him his perfect grades, it’ll be his first full length feature, and he’s positive it’ll go far. He can picture the screens now: Alex Kralie’s award-winning feature film _Marble Hornets._ If he could just name the damn characters he’d have his eggs all in a row and be set.

He debates turning the radio back on as he turns into the next street. The script is nearly perfect. He’s hit this position time and time again of thinking it was positive but there were always places he’d needed to fix, fidget with, amend, remove—kill your darlings, so they called it, and Alex liked to think he’d gotten at least somewhat capable of knowing what was good and what wasn’t. This time, though, he feels better about it. He feels good about it. This is it. This is the apex. This is what will get him noticed.

Noticed, he realizes, and his smirk becomes something of a frown.

He’s been putting a lot of effort in. His short film projects he’s done up until now haven’t had anyone showing up auditions, and while he’d chalk that up generally to misunderstood genius it’s sticking in the back of his head that most people are just glossing right over him. His audition fliers are in the same high-traffic places, and yet his classmates are the one getting amateur actors tripping over themselves to audition. They apologize, of course, time and time again; “Sorry, something came up.” “Oh, was that today? I completely forgot!” “I have a major test tomorrow, can we reschedule?” “I’m sorry, I thought your flier was somebody else’s.” He’d hate it less if they’d just tell him to his face they weren’t interested His teachers like his stories, his camera angles, his eye for detail and analytics, and yet he’s yet to nail one that they liked enough to share. Acceptable, he gets. Good. He wants more than that. The feedback is always narrow, forgettable, nothing that he can take to heart because they’re misunderstanding what he’s trying to do or simply glossing over it without truly understanding what incredible work he’s done. It bothers him. He wants more than that.

He wants a lot more than that.

Alex sighs through his nose as he turns into the neighborhood.

It’s jealousy, he’s guessing a bit absentmindedly. The script is nearly perfect, and _Marble Hornets_ is going to be what gets him noticed. It’ll be what gets him the grade he wants, gets him the steppingstone he craves, gets him the applause and the praise. It’s his baby, practically, child of his mind that he’s been invested in for going on eight years now. Patchwork perfection, but perfection nonetheless, a coming of age story written for himself as much as for everyone else—He’s reached it. His audience will love it. He’ll find the audience. The audience will find him, and his work will be appreciated.

He just has to name them right.

Pulling into the driveway, Alex shuts his car off and reaches for the notebook that had been set down unceremoniously in the passenger seat when he’d set out for this trip. Names can wait, he guesses, taking his seatbelt off in order to find the pencil that had been dropped somewhere around the other seat. The perfect names will be the very last puzzle piece to fall into place and then it will be truly finished, and he’ll be proud of himself for being ready to film his passion project. His fingers close around the dull pencil and he tucks it behind his ear, sliding out of the car and dropping his keys into his back pocket. The walk to the front door isn’t long enough for him to let go of thoughts of words bouncing around his skull, but he does his best regardless—he knows his friends are sick of hearing about it, but he can’t help wanting to share.

He knocks on the door, brushing off his urge to start brainstorming names in his notebook as it opens.

INT. BRIAN’S HOUSE – DAY.

Brian is grinning at him when he leans on the doorframe, hand held up in a gesture that Alex guesses was intended to be a wave of some sort. He’s dressed casually, some worn out band shirt and denim jeans. Barefoot, slightly scruffier than he usually is, a faint smell that Alex recognizes—seems like Brian’s been busy relaxing, though he seems alert now.

“Hey, Brian.” Alex says, with a slight laugh. “You get ahead of us?”

“I need a break every now and again, Kralie, c’mon.”

“You’re gonna get arrested.”

“Sure.”

Alex brushes past Brian with a roll of his eyes, though he’s still grinning, and Brian shuts the door behind him. He stretches, the sound of bare feet on the false-wood floor as Brian heads towards the living room while Alex stops in the hallway to take his shoes off by the door. He hears the familiar sound of Brian collapsing into the couch, and Alex only takes a moment to make sure he’s left his shoes in the right spot before heading to join him.

Brian stretches out, and Alex settles beside him on the couch, glancing towards the TV. The menu screen is a paused first frame of a movie in the DVD player, one that he can’t quite recognize off the top of his head, but he trusts Brian at the very least to be capable of picking something that wouldn’t be horrible to watch. Brian might not have the critic’s eye, but he’s not stupid.

“Who’s got pizza tonight?” Alex questions as he fidgets with his notebook for a moment, picking at a slightly torn page and skimming over the scrawled content. Brian’s head tilts towards him and he scratches at his cheek with a slight scoff.

“I think it’s my turn, Jay did it last time, right?”

“Yeah, as far as I can remember.”

“Then I’ll order it when they get here.” Brian leans over in order to look at his notebook, and Alex hands it to him somewhat dismissively. Their fingers brush and Alex focuses in on it for a quick moment before dismissing it altogether as Brian speaks up again—“What’re you working on?”

“Uh.” Alex pauses, marvels at the sensation that had felt like a jolt through him, “Names, actually.”

“Still haven’t figured those out?” Brian’s tone is lightly teasing, glancing up at Alex as he settles back on the couch, scanning the page in front of him and flipping one over. It’s only cursory, curious looks, and Alex isn’t bothered by his friend looking at his chicken scratch ideas. Brian’s probably one of the few people who can read his natural handwriting, anyway. “No name for your protagonist?”

“I’ve got a couple in mind. None of them feel right.”

“Shoot.”

“Connor.”

“That sounds like a four-year-old.”

“Isaac.”

“You trying to be biblical?”

“Not really.”

“I’d go with something else.”

“Troy?”

“Greek?”

“Yeah?”

“I mean, you’re definitely trying—” and Brian laughs, a confusing fluttering in Alex’s chest as he rolls his eyes and reaches to take his notebook back with an unceremonious yank. Brian relents, if only to void ripping the paper. “You’ll figure something out, but I’d probably veto the first ten on your list.”

“Your contributions will be noted, Mr. Thomas.” Alex grumbles in reply, taking the pencil from behind his ear and flipping to the right page. First ten on the list, he’d said, and Alex gets the feeling he’s seen them all anyway.

“So I get a co-writing credit now, right?”

“In your dreams.” He crosses out the first ten on the list and frowns slightly.

Brian’s phone rings from the counter, and he glances towards it, getting up with an audible sigh. He stretches again and Alex watches halfway intently—a small view of skin because his shirt is a little too small and his pants are low around his hips—as Brian approaches, picking up his phone and answering it with a noncommittal grunt after checking the number.

“We can reschedule.” Brian’s tone is the familiar sort of gentle that Alex recognizes as somewhere between apology and disappointment, and Alex sits up a little bit more, his grip tightening on his notebook unconsciously. “Next week. We’ll do something bigger than sitting around and watching a movie. Yeah? Yeah. Okay.”

Alex is still as the conversation continues, his eyes flickering to Brian’s hips and then away back to his notebook, furrowing his brows slightly. There’s a warmth in his cheeks that seems weird, out of place, a sudden sensation that that kind of glance was making—annoying. Nerves. Nerves? Why would he be nervous, he’s known Brian for years, it’s surely not—

Brian collapses suddenly beside him and nudges Alex with his elbow.

“That was Jay.” He says, and Alex does his best to stop the odd blush as he looks to him. “Had to cancel. Family stuff came up.”

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, it’s his Dad’s birthday and he forgot about it. I told him we’d just do something bigger next time.” Brian’s cellphone is in his hand now, thumb hovering over buttons as he tries to pick out the right numbers off the top of his head. “Seth texted too, said Sarah wanted to hang out. Looks like it’s just us.”

There’s a rock in the pit of Alex’s stomach.

“Just us?”

“Yeah. What do you want on your pizza?”

“Whatever you want.”

His mouth feels dry, a shakiness in his hands that he hopes to God that Brian won’t notice. He grips his notebook a little tighter. It’s not a negative feeling, he realizes, it’s some sensation of excitement. He’s glad to hear that it’ll just be the two of them, he thinks, sort of, pleased with himself to think—time alone, time alone with Brian. He’s smirking again, a lopsided grin that might be a little bit too toothy, and he ducks his head towards his notebook in an attempt to hide it while Brian calls for dinner.

He shouldn’t be so happy about it, he thinks. He shouldn’t be glad he’s got the fortune to be alone with Brian. And yet he’s thinking about the slight brush against his fingers, the noise Brian made when he stretched, the slight glimpse of skin between clothes, the smirk on Brian’s face and he knows his blush is worse than it should be. He leans back and settles into the couch.

“Well,” He says, “Do you wanna start when the pizza gets here, or should we start now?”

“We can get started and just pause it when the pizza guy shows up?”

Brian looks at him, and smiles, and Alex feels a confusing jolt through his heart when he looks back at him, and breathes out as slow as he possibly can. This is… a new sensation. He’s known Brian for a while. Orientation, freshman year. Three years. He’s always liked him. They’ve been in classes together, slept over at each other’s place after getting too excited with drinking. Alex has shared drafts of his scripts with him, talked over plot points. He’s smoked with Brian too, and been to parties with him, and talked him into roles in his short films. They’re friends. They’re good friends. There’s a heat in the center of his chest and an odd sensation of blushing on his cheeks. He likes Brian. He likes Brian a lot. He’s kind, and pretty thoughtful, and patient. Handsome. Stupid handsome--

“Yeah,” Alex replies, fidgeting with his pencil and looking towards the names in his notebook. “Sure. Go ahead and play it.”

Brian’s response is a noise of agreement and a nod as he reaches for the remote, mid-conversation with the pizza place, and then the movie starts. It’s a familiar set of sounds and logos and he recognizes it as one of the rare movies Brian was interested enough in to see twice in the theater. Some horror movie, he thinks, a gore-fest full of weird traps where the twist ending was that the pretty girl was the bad guy, or… something. He doesn’t remember; he’s only watched it once before. Horror’s not always been his thing, but he remembers at least enjoying it. Something about a clever narrative twist…

It’s background noise for him to think to, mostly. Shitty cop, dramatic serial killer. Death games. Not the height of narrative prowess. Besides, he brought his notebook for a reason.

He needs a name for his protagonist. His beloved protagonist who’s grown along with him from freshman in high school to junior in college. He’s too attached to the character, he thinks, but he’s had to spend so much time figuring out why he acts the way he does, why he thinks the way he thinks, what he was doing with his life in high school and why he decided to go to college so far away from his podunk little hometown. He needs a name that sounds admirable, noble, respectable. A name that sounds likable, welcoming, friendly, handsome—

He breathes in slowly, glancing over his glasses towards his friend for a moment, and then back to the papers in front of him.

He notes into the bottom of his list of names: B R I A N.

It would suit his protagonist, he thinks. Handsome. Smart. Capable. Everybody likes Brian Thomas, and he wants people to like his protagonist. Alex shifts back in his seat as he closes the notebook and tucks the pencil back behind his ear to sit and watch the movie with him. He doesn’t like the thought of just handing roles out, and the script is really almost perfect, but…

Maybe a few more rewrites couldn’t hurt.

\---

EXT. FILM BUILDING AT ROSSWOOD UNIVERSITY – MORNING.

It’s chilly as he’s walking up the road from the only available parking lot this morning, another unseasonable breeze making it necessary to take advantage of the fact he bought a nice new hoodie a week or so back. His bag of film equipment is over his shoulder, camera and script and tripod. Today’s a big day, and he’s got reason to be excited, and he is—but there’s a nagging sensation at the back of Alex’s head that’s proving hard to ignore.

Brian’s been spending less and less time with them this semester.

That’s not really something completely out of the ordinary, really. Jay was finishing an internship and so was only available a couple days at a time, Seth had so much of his classes loaded up that it was a small miracle he had any free time at all, and Alex himself was wrapped up in finalizing his script and making sure his grades didn’t slip so he could get started filming without worrying. He’d put up fliers for an audition, taken an exam, written a theoretical paper, gone to work at his on campus job, taken another exam, put up more fliers, waited for some phone calls, bought a fancy new camera with money he’d saved up from his on campus job, taken another exam, put up more fliers. They were busy. He gets it. He’s been exceptionally busy, too. Brian’s got tests, lectures, internships to apply to, codes to crack and people to psychoanalyze—Alex knows this, pretty much, but only because he’s seen Brian around, in bursts of minutes and texts and short phone calls, “I’ve got plans tonight, sorry, I’ll catch up with you guys later.”

But Seth and Jay were still sticking with their plans, give or take a few forgetful moments. It’s not suspicion that has settled on Kralie’s shoulders, but some sensation of disappointment. Brian wasn’t the sort of guy to cancel that often, and while Alex knows he’s got his reasons, he still doesn’t like it. So when he got the text that Brian had seen his flier and fully intended to audition, it was… mostly mixed feelings. He was looking forward to it, as he was always looking forward to one-on-one time with Brian, and a director needed to know his actors—but on the other hand, he felt quite doubtful Brian would show up in the first place, with how flaky he’s been lately. He’s positive other people will show up and read for any character, as he’s been extra careful to put his fliers up (“Auditions for Alex Kralie’s _Marble Hornets,_ Room 106 of the Film Building, Saturday, 11am to 7pm. Be a part of an artistic dream!”) in the most high-traffic areas he could find. He’s confident they’ll show up.

But he really wants Brian to come too, is the thing.

He’d handed him a flier directly. Invited him face to face. Brian had looked at the date, the time, thought for a second, and then grinned at him (that grin that makes his stomach twist up in knots) and promised he’d show up, and yet Alex was still doubting he’d keep his word. He’d skipped out on their game night, passed up another movie night, promised to show up again the next time, made plans and cancelled last minute—so something’s going on with Brian. Alex doesn’t know what it is. He hasn’t asked, assuming his friend would tell him. He wants Brian to show up. He really, really wants Brian to show up to the audition, at least, to read a couple lines for the stupid character he stupidly named after him and hopefully not act like he wants to be somewhere else the entire time.

He’ll show up, Alex tells himself as he pushes the front door to the film building open, adjusting his light jacket and being careful not to let the old door slam behind him. He’ll show up, he’ll read some lines (for his protagonist, of course) and other people will, too, and Alex will decide by acting merit instead of some stupid crush. Because it is a stupid crush, he thinks he’s realized, some passing stupid crush that—might? Be… Might be reciprocated. Maybe. He thinks so. He wants it to be. The ways Brian talks to him, encourages him, that movie night with the brush against his fingers—

Alex nearly bumps into someone passing through the hallway, giving a quick apology as they glare at him on his way. He exhales sharply through his nose and pushes his glasses up. Brian will show up. Brian and a bunch of other people to bring his artistic genius to life. It’ll be fine. It’ll be _fine,_ he’s _certain,_ it’ll be fine.

He hoists his heavy bag off his shoulder onto the table as the door to room 106 closes behind him, scuttling back across the room to prop it open with the doorstop. Auditions are supposed to start in half an hour, and he showed up to make sure he caught anyone who decided to be early—makes a good impression. He does expect a decent turn out, between the fliers, printing it in the newspaper, and talking about it before he left any of his film classes. He expects a decent turnout, and yet here he is thinking about how much he hopes Brian will show up.

He drags a table over into the right position. Puts his bag of equipment on the ground beside it. Drags another table over slightly behind it. The camera is first to be set up after he sheds his jacket, dropping it on top of the bag of supplies after pulling out the camera and his shorter tripod. He places the camera in it with almost reverential gestures, turning it on and adjusting the viewfinder to get the right angle of the room in front of it. He’d even made a proper title card, something scribbled last minute when he realized he’d need a bit more for organization: Alex Kralie’s MARBLE HORNETS auditions, Day 1/??, 11am to 7pm. The chair’s too high, and so he drops it before getting up and putting down a pad of paper and a pencil as well as digging the extra copies of his script (printed and labeled per character, names highlighted for whoever reads it) out of the bag to drop them beside the pad. A stray pencil, freshly sharpened, is placed on top, and he grins for a moment.

He’s expecting people any minute. Any minute they’ll show up and he’ll be able to show off his work for the first time, share the script closest to his heart and find the right person to bring his freshly named and long loved characters to life. The camera’s set, the stage is ready, the scripts are organized—now to sit and wait.

Any minute.

Any minute.

He still sorely hopes Brian will make the time for him.

Any minute now.

They’ll show up.

He fidgets with the camera, looks at the clock.

Adjusts the chair again, gets up to fidget with the scripts. Fixes the camera angle again when his hip bumps the table. They’ll show up, he knows people took the fliers, they know the date and time. He’s here when he promised he should be.

People walk by and Alex turns in their direction, shifting in the seat with his hands in his lap and his brows furrowed. The sound of a door opening and closing, unfamiliar voices that he knows only as strangers who do extra work in the film building. Janitors. One professor, after a while, stopping by long enough to tell him good luck with his auditions and laughing when he suggests they read for a bit part with a slightly forced grin on his face.

So he waits.

And waits.

And waits.

Alex slumps slightly in front of the camera. He—should’ve known better, probably. It’s not the first audition barely anyone had shown up to, but this time it stings a little harder. _Marble Hornets_ is what he’s the proudest of, what he’s put the most work and time and care into, and—not a soul? Nobody? Passed over and unnoticed, he guesses, but that’s not new, no one ever actually put the effort in to stop and understand what he was trying to do in the first place. He feels… childish, with the tension in his chest, a burning in his eyes, glancing towards the camera with a sensation of embarrassment and frustration and reaching to turn it off. No, that’s childish. He won’t. It’s disappointment. He’s saving battery. Somebody will come, at least one person, maybe Brian would, or Jay, Seth, one of them was supposed to, he was expecting them, but—

He turns the camera back on, shaking his head. No, don’t be a child. It’s fine. It’s Saturday. People are busy in the morning. They’ve got things to do, too, and Brian promised.

He stands up, brushes himself off, exhales slowly a few times and then steps out into the hallway, looking up and down. It’s early, he supposes, so maybe people would show up later. Maybe people were waiting. Locked out of the building. The empty hallway feels like it’s gloating when he steps back inside the room.

So he waits.

It’s at least a few hours more.

There’s the sound of the door at the other end of the hall of the door opening and closing, two voices briefly, two sets of footsteps. Alex holds his breath for a moment, glances over his shoulder—

“Hey! Hey, Brian.” Alex turns in the chair and stands at the sight of Brian, watching him come around the corner into the room and raise his hand in greeting again.

“Hey, Alex.” Brian’s familiar grin (and the fluttering in Alex’s chest) are a relief to see. He’s bundled up more than Alex had had to be, a familiar old hoodie underneath a nicer black jacket that Alex recognizes as more of his winter clothes. Brian leans in the doorway, glancing towards the table of papers and scripts, then back to his friend as he gestures towards it. “Am I late for the audition?”

“No,” Alex replies, with a huff of a laugh, feeling relief and satisfaction all at once. “You’re just in time. I was about to pack up, but we can still fit you in.”

“Were there a lot of people today?”

“There’s some competition.” His tone is wry, slightly frustrated, eyes drifting to a stranger in the hallway for a moment before fixating on Brian once again. “Just—take a script off the top there and sit down in front of the camera, I’ll show you.”

“Here?”

“Yeah.”

“Got it. Cold out today, huh?”

Chit-chat. The stranger in the hallway drifts out of sight again as Alex adjusts the camera.

“I didn’t think it was bad enough for a coat, just a little breezy.”

“You’ve been inside all day, haven’t you.”

“Maybe.” Alex snorts somewhat, shakes his head, looks through the viewfinder towards Brian and stifles his smile. “Go ahead and say your name to the camera.”

“I’m… Brian.”

“Full name.”

“That is my full name.”

Alex rolls his eyes, but the joke is something he’s glad to hear regardless.

“Well, I know who you are. I’ll take the other lines for this—you’ll be reading for, funnily enough, the character of Brian.”

“Really?” Brian leans back in his seat and that grin returns, a spark of mischief in his eyes, “That’s the one thing I’m good at.”

“As you’ve proven to me time and time again.” Alex replies with sarcasm in his voice. “So what I want here is just… gut reactions. Feel your way through it and do what comes naturally.” He’s struck with the sudden reminder of how many rewrites he’s done, with his friend in mind, “We’re gonna start at the top of this page, here,” he points it out on the script in Brian’s hands, “Go ahead whenever you’re ready.”

He’s seen Brian act before. Dragged him into a few of his other productions because he was one of the few people who expressed interest and didn’t up and disappear on him when he was ready to start filming. They were short films, of course, ten minutes at most and so not consisting of a lot of speaking, but Brian was good. He did drama in high school briefly, if Alex remembers right, but wasn’t the sort of guy who wanted to act as a career. Brian had star potential, but his ambitions were stronger elsewhere—that’s why he was a psych major. Alex feels almost a little bit sore about that. If they’d shared a major, they’d be an unstoppable team, Brian’s natural talent and Alex’s writing skills in combination—He thinks briefly of Shakespeare, and the knowledge that the bard wrote for specific actors in mind. His rewrites fit the bill, don’t they.

This is the first time he’s ever heard his dialogue spoken aloud, though, and Brian’s delivery damn near makes his heart stop.

“It’s just not the same as it used to be,” Brian says, and Alex bites his tongue to keep himself from saying the lines along with him. “When we were young, we were so happy. I felt like… she was my little secret. Now that time has passed, and… It’s not the case anymore. It’s like she’s no longer my little secret. It’s like everyone knows.”

“Maybe she never was to begin with,” Alex replies, forcing himself to stop staring at Brian. “Maybe what you really believed in was a lie.”

“Yeah, but it felt so real back then. It was almost like… It was like, for a while there, I truly believed in magic.” Brian’s eyes lift to meet his for a moment and Alex feels his heart in his throat, sitting up a little bit taller and digging his teeth into his tongue, like the words—mean—

Line, next line, his eyes are so _handsomely_ blue, that’s hardly fair—

“There’s still magic in this world, Brian. You just have to look in the right place.”

“Well. Wherever it is. S’not here. Not anymore at least.”

Brian’s a good actor. A really good actor. There are goosebumps on Alex’s arms, his fingers digging into his copy of the script a bit more than they should. He’s skilled, magnificent, beautiful, handsome—his mouth feels slightly dry, and he feels a paper crumple underneath his hands as he musters a smile, shifting slightly forward.

“Great,” Alex says, grateful to stop himself from stuttering, “That was really good.”

“Thanks.” And it’s like Brian has flipped a switch, back to the relaxation, a curious expression. “Did you write this?”

A flood of pride—

“I did, yeah.”

“Good job, dude.”

“Thanks.” He thinks he might be blushing again, and it feels stupid— Brian shifts in his seat, and Alex clears his throat. “On your way out, just write your name and email on the paper, I’ll let you know if you get the part.”

“Okie doke.” Brian stands from the seat, careful not to make it roll away as he approaches the pad, leaning over to write. He looks over his shoulder briefly and calls—towards the stranger, Alex guesses—“Hey, you ready to go?”

“Yeah.” The stranger answers, briefly, his tone slightly awkward.

A twinge in his chest.

“Who’s that?” Alex questions, cautious. Brian’s got a lot of friends, but not people Alex has never met before. Brian seems unfazed, though, looking back to Alex with a brief glance towards the door. There’s something unreadable in his expression, but Alex knows instinctively that he already doesn’t like what’s there.

“That’s my buddy Tim.” Brian answers. “We’re just getting dinner after this.”

“Does he wanna try out?” It’s worth a shot, he thinks, maybe. Delay it a little bit.

“Uh.” Brian straightens up, fidgeting with the pencil in his hands. “I don’t really know if that’s his thing, y’know?”

“Ask him.” Alex is being pushy, he knows, but with the fact that Brian’s the only other person who’s showed up to his audition all day, and he brought a friend, and there’s something about the way Brian mentions him, something in the expression on his face, “See if he wants to audition.”

Brian hesitates, then relents with something of a sigh, turning back towards the doorway. The stranger- Tim- shifts into view again, his hands in his coat pockets, his expression somewhat cautious. He doesn’t so much as glance at Alex, dark eyes remaining on Brian. Tim is shorter than the both of them, and obviously uncomfortable if the way he keeps his head angled slightly downwards is anything to go by.

“You wanna try out?” Brian questions, and his tone of voice has changed.

“No, I—No, don’t think so. I don’t really…”

“C’mon. If I can do it, you can do it. It’s easy.” Tim makes a face, and Alex can hear Brian’s smile without seeing it, “Come on.”

“Okay.” Tim relents, and shifts into the room, stepping around Brian and muttering his hello to Alex as he sits in front of the camera.

Alex thinks he’s seen this guy somewhere before. Not had a class with him, but in the hallways every now and again. In the music building, briefly, talking to a professor that Alex also needed to have a conversation with. Carrying an instrument once or twice. He’s familiar in a forgettable way, a stranger he brushed past on a crowded campus. That’s not what bothers him, though, what bothers him is the way Brian shifts back against the doorway as Tim sits, arms crossed over his chest, his expression vaguely amused.

Amateur actor.

Alex doesn’t know what to think.

“You’ll be reading for a different part,” He says, pushing the same script Brian used over to Tim. “The, uh—best friend character. Brian’s—not that Brian, the character Brian’s—best friend. I haven’t named him yet, but I sorta picture a cool guy. Smokes a lot. Facial hair, y’know.”

“I already smoke.” Tim offers, and Alex sees Brian smirk out of the corner of his eye.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” He doesn’t mean for it to come across as sarcastic, but he thinks it does. “We’ll start at these lines here.”

“Okay.”

“Whenever you’re ready.”

So Tim talks. And Alex knows the lines by heart, recites the conversation back to him to make it easier with his eyes on Brian the whole time because he knows the camera will pick up Tim’s part of it without him having to pay attention. This must be why Brian’s been missing so often, he realizes; he’s got a new friend. He’s spending time with someone else and blowing off their friend group for… some reason or another. An inkling perks up at the forefront of his mind and Alex dismisses it quickly, as quick as he can. No, that’s not it. That can’t be it. The smile in Brian’s voice, the visible pride in his eyes as he watches Tim, the—

No.

That’s not it.

“That’s good enough.” Alex says, cutting Tim off midsentence, and the other seems somewhere between surprised and relieved. Alex hasn’t been paying attention enough to know how Tim’s delivery was—he’ll watch the footage back later and figure it out, he guesses. “Thank you. You can put your name and email under Brian’s on the paper over there, I’ll get back to you if you get the part.”

“Okay.” Tim says again, slightly awkwardly as he stands up, and Brian shifts a little closer to watch over Tim’s shoulder as he writes. Alex clenches his jaw slightly.

“Hey, Alex,” Brian starts as Tim steps into the hallway, “Do you wanna come with us?”

“No.” It’s an easy reflex. He’s drawn his eyes away from Brian in order to look at the notepad populated by two names, the stack of unneeded scripts, “I’ve got a lot of footage to go through, and I’ve got to clean up here.”

“You sure?” Brian sounds—he doesn’t know, disappointed? There’s something else in his voice that Alex can’t identify and he doesn’t like it at all, doesn’t feel comfortable or happy with it, but he doesn’t have a name for it.

“I’m sure.” Alex shrugs. “I was also gonna go get some b-roll footage with my new camera to test it out.”

“Alright.” Is it disappointment? Almost. Brian’s brows are furrowed slightly. “I’ll see you later, then.”

“Yeah. See you.” Alex stares at him, and watches the duo turn away from the doorway. He looks back to the camera on the desk as he gathers up his papers.

Brian has a new friend. Brian has somebody he’s spending a lot more time with than with him, with their group of friends. When did he meet him? A few months back, if the schedule of how frequently Brian started disappearing on them mattered at all—why? Why bother? It’s not like they were unwelcoming. Seth brought Sarah around even before they were—He refuses to think the word. They’re not. They’re just friends. Brian’s just getting to know a new guy and Brian’s always been the sort of person to invest a lot of time into his friends because Brian’s just that nice of a guy.

They were talking as they headed down the hallway, and Alex looks towards the door as he picks up the camera on the desk, turns it off, snaps the viewfinder shut. The urge to cough gathers in his throat and he puts the back of his wrist against his mouth as he does, grinding his teeth slightly. The papers are put into the bag, along with the tripod. Brian’s got a new friend. They’re being replaced—no, that’s irrational, too, he hasn’t cancelled on them all the time, and it meant a lot that he showed up to the audition. Alex already knows he’s going to give him the part regardless. Brian’s just being a good friend. He’s stretched thin. It’s just fine.

Alex keeps his camera out of the bag, fidgeting with it again. It’s fine. There’s nothing wrong. Brian showed up to the audition like he promised to, didn’t he? And he brought his new friend. So they’ll go back to hanging out like normal soon. Like nothing’s changed. His new friend might just fit his way into their friend group—

Though, Alex thinks he doesn’t like him much. Something about that guy rubs him the wrong way.

He coughs again as he pulls his jacket on, puts his bag over his shoulder and turns the light off as he heads out of the room, down the hallway, and back to the sidewalk towards his car. Something about him doesn’t feel right, but if Brian liked him…

He sighs through his nose. The intersection he wanted to use for a little bit of footage is only a short drive away and he can pick up something to eat on the way home. Dismiss these thoughts and prepare for putting up more audition fliers—he can’t make a movie with two actors, anyway.

\---

INT. ALEX’S HOUSE – DAY.

It’s the first day of shooting and Alex feels like he’s walking on clouds. Partially because he woke up for this too early.

Characters – names included – in place, where they should be. Actors on the way to meet each other for mostly not-the-first time, since he cast Brian and Seth’s girlfriend Sarah, who they all know. (Nobody else auditioned. Sarah was very polite. He named the character after her to be nice.) Equipment all in place, script supervisor (Jay “Attention to Detail” Merrick) hired. Final rewrites finished. Printed. They’ll still have to find some locations, but today’s the day the entire crew is in one place, saying hello to each other, doing a screen test or two—it’s real. It’s happening. His heart hasn’t stopped pounding all day and he hasn’t been able to keep himself from smiling so hard his cheeks hurt.

This sort of excitement was normal for him, in starting a new project, but _Marble Hornets_ is—different. This is the passion project. This isn’t the eager grade-grabber that he put a hell of a lot of creative effort into, this is the script he wrote because he _wanted_ to write it. And today’s the first day. He got maybe three hours of sleep and today’s the first day.

He’s pacing.

“Are you nervous or something?” Jay questions from his place perched on the counter, flipping through his copy of the script. Alex wrote script supervisor edition on it in red pen and everything. It’s fancy. Jay was the only one qualified for the job.

“No.” Alex replies, somewhat sharply, stopping where he’s in the process of wearing a hole into the carpet. “I’m not nervous.”

“You’ve been pacing for like, twenty minutes.”

“I can still fire you.”

“You won’t.”

Alex rolls his eyes at Jay’s snicker and shifts back into movement. He’s not nervous. It’s excitement making his heart race, because this is supposed to be both the day he’s in charge of and the beginning of something he’s been looking forward to for what feels like half his life at this point. He hasn’t slept much. It’s starting to hit him through everything. Three hours total, he thinks, and even within that were some weird dreams about being a kid again and being watched. The kind of nightmare he hasn’t had since he was small, actually, a nightmare of being lost somewhere he shouldn’t be or in the middle of a situation he shouldn’t be part of. It’s sticking in his head a bit. No—no, today’s the day to be excited, to be looking forward to the work, to be glad for--

“—supposed to get here?”

“Huh?” Alex pauses again in his movement, blinking a few times and looking back to Jay. “Sorry. Zoned out. What’d you say?”

“I asked you when everybody was supposed to get here.” Jay repeats patiently, his copy of the script in his lap. The pages are slightly wrinkled already, like he’s been fidgeting with it.

“Oh. Soon, I think.” Alex looks down at the watch on his wrist. “I told them as close to noon as they could possibly get.”

“So Seth’ll be here at 12:30 and Brian’ll show up at almost 1.”

“Give them some credit, Jay, come on.”

“I’m right!”

Alex sighs audibly, pinching the bridge of his nose. It might not be excitement. It’s some level of irritation, sort of. Seth has a longer drive to get over to his house and Brian’s still been busy being ridiculously flaky and hanging out with his new friend, who the rest of the gang besides Alex have yet to meet. It’s mostly excitement, but he feels more tired than he should, and the lack of sleep is starting to catch up to him more intently than he thought it would. It’s a good thing they’re not supposed to be doing very much today.

Jay slides off the counter, putting the script down and adjusting his hat as he moves around it into the kitchen to see what Alex has stashed away.

Alex keeps pacing. He’s not used to feeling so restless. He’s tired, but there’s an energy in his arms and legs that feels like it’s trying to get him to move. Like he should be moving somehow, something a lot faster and further than pacing circles around his living room. He’s never been much of a runner and yet the desire’s there to put his shoes on and run, head outside and keep going to see how far he could get. It’s incongruent with the sleepiness in his eyes and the heaviness in his bones. He covers his mouth to cough and sighs.

Knock at the door after a while, and he perks up—

Seth and Sarah, entering without having to be announced. Alex musters a grin for them. Camera guy and lead actress. It’s good. It’s fine. He’s feeling a bit of a headache starting at the base of his neck, but it’s easy enough to ignore for now. Today’s a big day. Today’s a really big day and he’s not going to let lack of sleep or a headache stop him from enjoying the fruits of his labor. The conversation starts between the two of them and Jay and he can’t quite focus as well as he’d like to on what they’re saying, resuming his steady movement and fidgeting slightly. There’s some sound of names he recognizes in passing, but it feels irrelevant. A buzzing noise in his ears and talk that passes him by—

Seth snapping his fingers in front of his eyes. Alex twitches and blinks to clear his vision, focusing for a second and looking back at him.

“Earth to Kralie.” Seth says, raising a brow. “I asked you where the equipment was—you okay?”

“Uh—Yeah. I’m fine. Just tired.” He clears his throat and scratches at the back of his neck, pushes his glasses up. “It’s in the hallway closet, I got everything all set up and ready to go last night. We just need the, uh—” The word escapes him, for a long moment, and Alex shakes his head hard for a second as if to let go of whatever’s clutching his tongue. “The hand-held, a couple tapes, maybe the tripod.”

“Got it.”

Alex rubs at his eyes under his glasses for a moment, feels Jay nudge his side.

“You sure you’re fine? You seem pretty tired.” His friend keeps closer than he should with an obvious expression of concern, and Alex exhales slowly, pushing him away gently. Leave it to Jay to be worried about him regardless of what he says.

“I’m just tired. I’m good, Jay, don’t worry, I want to do this today.”

“Okay.”

“We’re just waiting on Brian and Tim.”

“Yeah.”

“It’ll be a short day anyway.”

“If you want.”

“It’ll be fine.” Alex nudges Jay, glances towards the door in time to hear a knock to announce an arrival. “Don’t worry. I’ll take a nap when everyone leaves.”

Jay doesn’t seem satisfied, but they both know he won’t put up a fight on it. Not when Alex has promised to take care of the problem.

The neighbor’s dog barks somewhere, loud enough that Alex can focus on it, and along with the noise comes the sound of two car doors shutting. That, he guesses, is Brian and Tim. It’s proven short moments later as the door opens, the sound of indecipherable voices for a moment in the doorway before it closes, and Alex feels a fluttering in his chest. Brian’s here, finally. His star actor. His lead. The man whose face was going to be on the posters, in the nostalgia reels, in the trailers, his number one actor and—

Brian enters with his arm thrown around Tim’s waist, the shorter man looking slightly flustered as Brian holds him tight. Alex can see the way the fabric of his coat bunches up slightly under Brian’s hand and the sensation in Alex’s chest feels less like fluttering and more like a glass bottle being dropped onto concrete.

He swallows the lump in his throat.

“Hey, we were starting to think you weren’t gonna show up.” Jay’s grinning, but he sounds far away to Alex now as he fixates on that hand gesture, the way Tim’s leaning slightly into Brian, the way that—

“I promised Tim I’d give him a ride so he wouldn’t get lost.” Brian’s voice is so casual, carrying that usual tone of amusement and teasing that just seemed to come so naturally to him, something that Alex was always always fixated on and suddenly he feels wide awake, focused in hard on the way the duo is standing. It’s obvious. So obvious. But it’s not, it’s—it’s not—

“This is my boyfriend, Tim. Tim, this is all my friends.” Brian gestures, but Alex doesn’t think he sees it.

“Hi.” Tim says, almost sheepishly. The sensation in Alex’s stomach has become a sensation of glass shards, a heavy lump in his throat that he can’t swallow past, disbelief and a sensation of sadness and a spark of unfamiliar _rage_ for just a moment.

That’s… not right. None of that is right.

It’s the anger that strikes him so quickly that comes across as confusion—anger’s the wrong reaction to that, he thinks, he’s not angry about it. Not _that_ kind of angry, at least, not the unreasonable hot anger that feels like bile in his throat. Like it’s burning him from somewhere, there and gone again in the same moment to be replaced by—He should’ve known. He should’ve been able to tell. Brian wouldn’t flake on them for someone he barely knew, wouldn’t cancel plans just to hang out with a stranger unless that stranger had some kind of importance. Brian wouldn’t disappear on them without a damn good reason to and if that damn good reason happened to be—

This guy? This loser who wouldn’t make eye contact with a person, let alone a camera, who couldn’t act for shit and who mumbled when he talked, who looked like he was glued to Brian at the fucking hip and wasn’t looking up at the group around them except through his eyelashes. Brian Thomas, the man who has women and men both throwing themselves at his feet for the off chance of getting his attention for more than a few minutes, the indisputably most popular bastard among their friend group, picks some—some fucking nobody? Some scruffy little—

The anger doesn’t feel right. It feels impulsive, reflexive, intrusive. Like the shards of glass in his stomach had ripped something open on the way down his throat and the end result is blood and bile flooding his chest. Alex takes a deep breath, exhales slowly. The conversation around him has continued on without him. He gradually unclenches his hands from fists and tries to pull himself back into it. But he can’t, exactly. He hears and acknowledges Jay and Sarah and Seth introducing themselves to Tim, acknowledges that he said hello back because he feels his mouth form the words but his mind won’t focus again. Alex is standing there in the middle of his living room clutching a notebook and feeling his blood boil in his veins in a way that he’s unaccustomed to and uncomfortable of.

Brian Thomas has a boyfriend.

He should’ve known better.

Alex feels even more tired suddenly, pulsing anger in the center of his chest like a weight as he tries harder to pay closer attention. He stifles a cough and focuses on the sounds around him instead—

He thinks he missed something. Jay’s looking at him expectantly, Seth and Sarah on his couch, Brian still with his arm around Tim- over his shoulder- and that same lazy smile that makes Alex’s heart skip a beat on his face. They’re waiting for him, he realizes, thoughts clicking together like ice in an empty glass. Maybe what the shards in his stomach were supposed to make up first. He clears his throat.

“Alright.” Alex says, clapping his hands together. The paper in his grasp rumples audibly. Brian has a boyfriend. “Today’s day one, so we’re going to take it easy.” Brian has a boyfriend and it’s not him.

“Since when do you take it easy?” Brian taunts lightly, and Alex does not look at the duo.

“Since I’ve got like, three actors and some camera logistics to figure out.” Alex replies pointedly, lifting a slightly shaky hand to push his glasses up. “Means you have less to do today.”

“Great.”

Jay chuckles, and Alex inhales slowly and exhales slower again, feeling his nails dig into the heels of his palms. Since when did Brian have—

“Anyway, continuing on,” Alex stifles another cough. “We’re going to do a read through of the script so I can answer character questions. If you didn’t bring your copy, I printed some extras, but if you lose this one I’m not gonna be happy with you.”

Tim is positioned in a way that puts Brian slightly ahead of him, his body turned slightly into Brian’s. Brian’s head is tilted slightly against him, and the lump in Alex’s throat is sharp.

“I’m still doing some location scouting for some places,” He continues, “Like the school scenes, and for some b-roll and other stuff. I’ll talk to you and Seth about that, Jay.” He gestures towards them. “I’ll help you make notes in your script about what I want when.”

“Do we have a set schedule?” Jay asks, helpfully.

“It’s flexible.” Alex answers. He feels like he’s being jabbed hard in the heart with every inhale and spoken word. “We have a couple night shoots, and I feel like it’d be easiest to take up your weekends, but I’ll text you the night before and make sure we’re all on the same page.”

Sarah raises her hand.

“If you need to cancel for something, you can let me know ahead of time, I’ll schedule around you.” Alex says.

Her hand lowers.

“Any other questions?” He spares a quick glance towards Brian and Tim, to the rest of the gathered gang, clenches his jaw slightly. Silence answers him, and so, “Great. Let’s get started.”

There’s a prickling sensation at the back of his neck.

EXT. PARK BY THE HIGH SCHOOL - MORNING.

“What am I supposed to be running from?”

“Your past, Brian. It’s dramatic because you’re running away from yourself.”

“Myself or my past?”

“Yeah.”

“Sure. How’re we getting this?”

“Seth’s gonna be on top of the car.”

“Is that legal?”

INT. SARAH’S HOUSE - AFTERNOON.

“I need you both on the couch like— that, yeah. Hold that.”

“Okay.”

“Arm off Tim, Brian. There we go. Sarah--”

“I know my line, don’t worry.”

“Just checking. Can you two look less… happy.”

“Depressed teenager, got it.”

INT. TIM’S APARTMENT – AFTERNOON.

“Do you ever clean up in here?”

“I don’t have guests a lot.”

“I can tell.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll be fast.”

“What do you—need, again?”

“You have a notebook, right?”

INT. ALEX’S HOUSE – EVENING.

Brian and Tim as a couple are slightly hard to work with. This shouldn’t be considered as much of a problem as it is, of course, but reviewing footage is frustrating because for every good few shots he’s got, Alex is reminded that, in half the behind the scenes reviews, Tim or Brian is busy making googly eyes at Brian or Tim, and it’s—frustrating. Annoying. Something he doesn’t like to see, something that makes the jealousy in his chest feel that much more intense. It shouldn’t be something that bothers him so much. It shouldn’t. But there’s a stinging there, every time, an uncomfortable stinging as he fixates on the way they talk to each other, picked up by the camera or else teasing in the middle of the scene. It’s familiarity, comfortable familiarity, something that Alex envies Tim for deeply and something that he thinks Brian could do better than.

He’s started coughing. Allergies, he supposes. It couldn’t be anything worse than that. He’s enjoying the whole making-a-movie thing, and he’s trying hard to lean into that because he knows it’s going to pay off. There’s no point being sad about—about not being Brian’s boyfriend. That feels like a stupid thought to him. You’re not Brian’s boyfriend, and that hurts to think about. It shouldn’t, but it does, and he tries his hardest to ignore it.

His new camera isn’t working as well as it’s supposed to. The tech at the store he bought it from- still within its warranty- insists there’s nothing wrong with it. He bought more tapes while he was away.

INT. BRIAN’S HOUSE – MORNING.

“That’s the shirt you’re wearing?”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Who even picked that out for you?”

“It was a birthday present.”

“Are you sure they didn’t hate you?”

“Pretty sure he likes me, yeah.”

“Great.”

EXT. PARK NEAR THE HIGH SCHOOL – DAY.

“We’re on our way to get coffee.”

“Yes.”

“And I’m talking to Brian.”

“Yeah. That’s easy for you, right?”

“I just don’t really understand how I’m supposed to say this.”

“You’re mad at him because he left you behind. That’s all you have to do.”

“Am I mad at him or upset?”

“Is there a difference?”

INT. ALEX’S HOUSE – EVENING.

He’s feeling pretty good about this whole making a movie thing. The only problem is so many of his tapes are picking up some weird distortion that he doesn’t know what to think of. It’s not noticeable in some, just bits of screen-tearing, but in other parts it’s audio seeming entirely wrecked—one of the days he went location scouting with Jay is all but inaudible, the picture mostly intact but their voices warped into something that sounds more like a wind tunnel than the average conversation they’d had. He’s feeling good about getting started making his movie, but it feels like he’s going to need more reshoots than he thought he would in the first place. The camera’s new, so it can’t be broken. That’s why he went and got it looked at. He’s meticulous about taking care of his tapes, so they’re not scratched. There’s a figure in a few of them, though, some weird smudge on the lens, out of focus and too far to recognize.

Another sensation of prickling at the back of his neck and Alex presses a pen to the paper of his script, scratching out another word with a quick glance over his shoulder.

He’s starting to feel like he’s being watched. His cameras (because he tried multiple, even the old crap one he replaced) are picking up such odd sort of distortion and silhouettes of strangers. Nobody else sees it, though, is the frustrating thing—nobody else notices. Alex points out a stranger in the background, someone tall and thin and odd watching while they film, and nobody notices. So he bites his tongue and doesn’t say anything else.

The pencil is poking holes through the paper while his hand shakes a little bit, light graphite etched across his script.

EXT. PARK – AFTERNOON.

“We can’t start a bonfire here.”

“I mean, we can just do close ups of another fire or something, it’s not—”

“How much trouble do you think we’d get in if we did it anyway?”

“Alex!”

EXT. NEAR THE RIVER – AFTERNOON.

“It was just so different when it was the three of us against the world, you know?”

“Yeah, I know. Like we were invincible.”

“We were a team back then. And these days…”

“Hey, cut, can you— You don’t sound right.”

“What do you mean, don’t sound right?”

“You sound like you’re reading off a script. Take a second, fix it, go again.”

EXT. BACK AT THE PARK, BY THE PLAYSET – EVENING.

“Who’s that guy?”

“What guy?”

“That… dude standing there, he’s been in frame.”

“I didn’t see anybody.”

“… You must’ve missed it, I guess.”

INT. ALEX’S HOUSE – EVENING.

Most of his tapes are full of useful footage. He’s been re-watching them every night when the filming’s finished, making notes and saving what could be useful. He’s been… drifting. Drifting might be the word for it. He’s been feeling fidgety lately, like there’s too much to do and too little time to do it. Work doesn’t feel like anything. The last of his classes haven’t felt like anything. Being home and working on footage hasn’t felt like anything. He’s mostly aware of the sensation that he’s being watched and the fact he’s picked up a lot more tapes than he’s needed to, recently, bought four or five packages of empty tapes because he feels better with a camera on his person. Because he feels better when it’s recording and that way it feels less like—

He thinks he’s being followed. Somebody’s stalking him or following him or something. He keeps seeing a man in a suit in the background of so much of his full tapes and has been seeing it more and more when it came to just trying to set a scene. A lot of his b-roll footage is unsalvageable, audio and video both corrupted beyond anything he has the skill to repair. He’s started a nightly ritual of setting up his camera, going through as much footage as possible from the filming of that day to see what was usable and what was not, and trying to ignore the prickling sensation at the back of his neck that’s beginning to feel more like the tip of a scalpel against the nape of his neck.

He’s getting less patient. Less thoughtful. More frustrated. He knows he is. Something’s wrong with him. He’s got less time for goofing off on set than he used to. Less interest in having to explain his vision over and over again. More frustrated when lines feel like they come read off of a page instead of coming like natural conversation. Angrier at uncooperative weather. At shitty cameras. At broken tapes. At his friends.

But the footage is good. For every unsalvageable tape there’s at least a few that are usable for b-roll, good scenes for what he was trying to set out to do, and at the center of it—at the center of it is Brian. At the center of the broken tapes and the usable ones alike there is Brian, beautiful, incredible, skilled and handsome Brian—

He's thinking stupidly, he thinks. Envious still of Tim because he sees so much of them together, and Brian’s scenes where it’s supposed to be only he and Alex can only be dragged out for so long. He’s sitting in his bedroom staring down the barrel of his camera propped up on his nightstand and the blinking red light and feeling—foolish. Very foolish. He’s jealous and angry and he doesn’t understand all of it. There’s sorrow and annoyance and frustration and at the center of it is the discomfort at the back of his neck and the strong desire to be able to spend more time with his friend, with his crush, with someone who he’s so certain would make him feel a hell of a lot better.

He’s not sleeping anymore, he thinks. That’s probably bad.

INT. ALEX’S CAR – DAY.

“That’s it.”

“We’re done?”

“Yeah. We’re done.”

“Okay…”

EXT. GAZEBO – DAY.

“How many times do I have to tell you before you listen—get off—you brought your _dog!_”

“Alex, calm down—”

“Memorize your lines!”

INT. ALEX’S HOUSE – EVENING.

Brian’s the best actor on set. The only one who can deliver consistently, who treats it like the art form it is. The only one who understands his vision. It’s become harder and harder to tolerate anyone else, because Brian’s the one who follows what he’s trying to do, what he set out to try and put together. Alex isn’t sleeping very well anymore. His restlessness has altered itself, becoming scribbling and frustrations. He is being followed. He knows he’s being followed. He’s got it on camera now. Lovely, lovely Brian, his eloquent voice, the masterful way of carrying himself, an athlete who exudes confidence, brighter than the sun and twice as warm. Alex is being followed. He’s got it on camera, the stranger in the window, the faceless thing—his restlessness has become scribbling, sharpie and pencil on cue cards and pages of the script, trying his hardest to fathom what it is he’s understanding and experiencing and it manifests in shoving a pencil through a paper sometimes, pinning words to walls the way he used to when he needed to see a plot more clearly except this time it’s frantic and frightened. The thing doesn’t have a _face--_

Brian Thomas, the beautiful boy. It’s become harder to tolerate anyone else and Alex knows it’s a problem. But it isn’t, at the same time, because the director is supposed to know his lead. Know their skills, know their capabilities, know them, befriend them, understand them. And he knows Brian. Knows him really well, by now, follows the way he acts and the way he walks and the way he talks and—

He’s jealous.

He’s very jealous.

Tim’s started speaking up more, too, snapping back and growing more comfortable around the group. Alex sees the way he smiles at Brian, and he understands, because when Brian smiles at him he feels his heart stop in his chest, feels his blood pause in its meager motions. When Brian speaks the words he wrote he falls that much harder, that much sharper, that much faster. It’s hard not to look into his eyes and adore him—so why does Tim get to be the one to do that? He’s seen them kiss. Seen the soft way Brian holds his hips, the way their foreheads bump. Brian asked Tim to spend the night more than once at his house. It’s burned into Alex’s head, that soft voice, the gentle way he spoke. Why did Tim get that? Why did the bastard, the stranger in their midst, why did he get the affection that Alex craves more than anything? Why does he get the laugh, the arm over his shoulder, the hand on his face, the gentle kiss—why does a stranger get that? Why not him?

Why not him?

He’s jealous. He knows he’s jealous. He’s angry. He knows he’s angry. He’s being followed and when he’s sitting there with his hands clutching his script and a pencil, breathing heavy and shaking as he scribbles his empty circles, he knows he’d find the refuge in Brian if the man would just let him, like he needs to, like he desperately wants to—

INT. BRIAN’S HOUSE - ??? TIME?

“I need you for a couple more scenes tonight, if that’s okay.”

“Sure, are we reshooting something?”

“Nah, nah, just some b-roll.”

Tell him to pose and he does. Tell him to speak and he does. And he’s beautiful, beautiful, so beautiful, the most beautiful thing Alex has ever laid his eyes on. So kind, so patient, so thoughtful, so so beautiful, so lovely, he wants to cry. He listens so well and performs so well and Alex is so agonizingly jealous because why won’t he understand? Why can’t he find the words, why wouldn’t he choose Alex over—over someone who surely couldn’t value him the same way--

INT. TIM’S APARTMENT – NIGHT, I THINK

“I figured we could work on the soundtrack.”

“What are you thinking?”

“Something like… acoustic sort of, maybe with the ukulele.”

“Brian got that for me like a week ago, but we could probably figure it out.”

“Yeah, I want something sort of old fashioned, sort of—”

“Is it gonna be… like, dark?”

“There’s gonna be significantly more lighting.”

Even in the dark and when he’s fidgeting with the keyboard, he’s glad when Tim’s gone, glad when it’s just the him and Brian, fuckin’ battery powered keyboard while it storms outside and Tim goes hunting for a light switch. It’s nice, almost, comfortable, almost. Time alone with Brian would be beneficial if it weren’t for the fact it’s so goddamn temporary, so goddamn fleeting, like it doesn’t—

Is it here, too?

INT. ALEX’S HOUSE – LOSING TIME

The thing that’s following him won’t leave him alone. It’s there all the time, and he’s starting to want to hack his lungs up every time. They’re sharp, shards of glass cutting him up from the inside out and sending pulsing anger through every part of his body. He’s not sleeping. He’s being followed. Being pulled along, he thinks. Acting because he must act.

Not all the tapes are unsalvageable, and he’s not bothered by holding onto the ones that work. He’s reviewing footage to make sure any script rewrites and stage directions and the locations they’ve found are the right ones that’ll work for what he needs. Brian’s at the center of so many of these, like he should be. He’s the star and deserves to be the star. He deserves his name in lights, fame and fortune, prosperity, everything, everything, everything. Brian deserves everything.

And Alex is so goddamn jealous.

The papers are pinned up on his wall, scribbled on in a way that he found comforting when he was trying to gather his thoughts. It’s pieces of his script, stray papers, shoved into the wall with pushpins and tape. Words that come to mind viciously, frighteningly.

He’s been thinking about Brian. The tapes that still work, that lack all of the audio distortion and screen tearing, the discoloration and the things that would’ve made him think that maybe his camera was just broken, it isn’t severe in all of them. It isn’t constant in all of them, either, he’s been trying hard to salvage what he can in order to get the clear pictures. Scenes stitched together and repaired like they’ll still make something good at the end of the tunnel.

He knows what the scene in front of him is supposed to be. After the bonfire, Sarah and Brian (the characters, not his friend, not his--) walk together on the empty street that is their childhood home. They’d had to film it separately. One night was him and Brian and Jay, the other night was him and Jay and Sarah. He knows it’s him holding the camera when it’s focused in on Brian. Jay was behind them. The lines were going to be cut together when they sat down to edit them.

“I can’t believe you came back.” Sarah says. “After so long.”

“I had to.” Brian answers her, wistfully. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

Alex feels a tension in his chest.

“I didn’t think I would ever see you again.” Her tone is sad, but happy, at the same time. Relieved.

“I wouldn’t do that to you.” The footage distorts, briefly. A shift of screen tearing near the bottom. The thing behind him has its fingers splayed over his eyes, he feels like, but Brian’s voice is centered before him. “I would never do that to you.”

Alex reaches blindly for his phone.

“Are you back for real?” Sarah asks him, and Brian laughs, that same laugh that sends shivers down his spine—

He pauses it, rewinds the footage back to the start while clutching his phone.

Why does Tim get to have him? It’s not fair. He’s known Brian longer. Been his friend longer. They’ve shared classes together. Shared drugs (admittedly nothing ever more intense than weed), alcohol, shared dinners and had sleepovers, all-nighters and binge-watching movies because he wanted to talk about the narrative and the cinematography and Brian would smile and nod and listen, comment when he had something interesting to say. He couldn’t be faking that, could he? He wouldn’t be. He isn’t.

He knows the number by heart because he’s dialed it multiple times by now and not found the gumption to press call, fumbling over his words when he tried to think of what he was going to say. Why does Tim get to have Brian? It’s not fair. It’s not fair at all. They’re better friends, closer friends—and he’d be better than him. Alex would be so much better than that coward, that shy bastard who had found where he could manage to present any kind of snark, that fucker who still couldn’t deliver lines decently even when he was trying to be confident, all shitty fashion and smoker-stink. Alex would be better. He couldn’t possibly be treating Brian well, couldn’t possibly understand and value him the way that Alex does. The shadow in his room shifts, the papers stirred by a gentle breeze. Alex could be better. Would be better. Is better. Is so, so much better, so much fucking better than all of them, than any of them, except—

Except Brian.

Beautiful, unattainable, clever, perfect, perfect, perfect—

He dials the number.

“Hey, Alex, what’s up?”

“Hey, Brian—are you busy?”

“Not right now, no. Why?”

“I had some stuff I wanted to go over on the script, if you’ve got the time?”

“Uh…” There’s a pause, the sound of rustling fabric. Is Tim there? Is he waiting for a certain time? Brian would never ignore him, never put him off, he’s stopped being so flaky and so hard to follow, he would never—“Yeah, I’ve got time. Do you wanna come over?”

“Sure. It shouldn’t take too long, I’ll mess around with your copy and make sure it matches mine.”

“Great. See you in a bit.”

Elation, elevation, adoration, oh, his heart is soaring— Brian hangs up and the dial tone on his phone continues on, continues on, continues on. He sets it down on his desk and feels the eyes on him as he steps across the room to fumble for his camera, checking to see if it was still recording. How much space there is on the tape in it so he can shove a few more into his pocket, pick up his notebook and pencil and the spare script that he hasn’t been hiding from his friends because it’s full of the scribbled symbol that, for one reason or another, brought him comfort. More time with Brian. Heavenly, something he can lean into and relax over. Because Brian helps. Being near him helps. More than it should, because beautiful perfect unattainable Brian is not his boyfriend and does not and will not ever think of him that way, except—except…

Is it looking in through his window?

He feels cold. Too cold. Brian will help.

EXT. ALEX’S CAR – DARK.

He could make the drive in his sleep, so it’s not like it’s anything different now.

INT. BRIAN’S HOUSE. PARADISE. – DARK.

He doesn’t entirely remember the drive, is the real problem. He feels so distant. So relieved to be away from the noise and the frustration that comes with his friends not listening to him. He’s coughing hard into his sleeve as he’s standing in Brian’s doorway, but he knows it’s nothing, nothing at all, because he’s faraway and uninvolved and walking on air because he’s going to have more time alone with the only person that matters. The only person he cares about. The only one he wants to see and keep seeing, really, truthfully, the idealized—

“Took you a little while to get over here.”

“Yeah, sorry.” Alex sits on the couch beside Brian, hands him his director’s copy of the script so he can take Brian’s and edit what needs to be edited. (There isn’t anything, but he knows how to look busy.) “I kept hitting all the red lights.”

“No worries.”

Adoration, infatuation, desire and tension in his chest and he’s caught glimpses of the thing out the window but he refuses to acknowledge it. So he’s being followed. So what. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter at all because right now it’s him and Brian alone and he’s reveling in that thought, pleased and knowing his arrogance is still so, so selfish—

He glances over his glasses towards Brian, and the other man’s expression is vaguely concerned. His handsome face is twisted somewhat, Alex thinks, shifted somehow with a look of worry that he doesn’t know what to call. Alex raises a brow.

“Something up?”

“You seem a little off, dude.” Brian says, gradually. He sounds like he expects to be bitten. “You have for a while.”

“Yeah, I’m… I’m sorry.”

“Sarah wanted me to talk to you.”

“Did she?”

“Yeah. She and Tim both have been feeling pretty bullied on set…” He starts, and Alex can tell he’s choosing his words carefully, but all he can fixate on is the audible worry in his friend’s voice. Brian’s worried about him. Thinking about him. Talking about him. That’s what he wants, he thinks, he wants that sort of focus and attention. “I figured I should say something.”

“It’s just a lot more stress than I thought it’d be.” Alex looks down at his script instead of at Brian. Absently, he draws a line over one of the O’s on the page. “And a lot of work.”

“We’re making a movie.” Brian chuckles lightly and it is sparks up the length of Alex’s spine as his hand rests on his shoulder. “I thought you’d think it was more fun than this.”

“I am enjoying it,” Alex retorts, somewhat sharper than he means to. “It’s just a pain in the ass when people aren’t working with me.”

“Hey, don’t talk like that—”

Alex lifts his face, Brian’s hand still on his shoulder, their eyes meeting each other’s, and Alex’s world shrinks to the man in front of him, tracing the lines of his features, the softness in his gaze, the scruffiness on his jaw. Brian’s been lax in his grooming lately. That’s not script-accurate, and yet Alex isn’t entirely bothered by it, his mind wandering elsewhere to the thought of what it would feel like. What it might feel like to have more than just the hand on his shoulder. What it could feel like to rest his head against Brian’s chest and feel his chin on top of his head, what an arm around his waist would be like. He’s taller than Brian, so it’d take some maneuvering, but the thought still makes his heart jump slightly. Scruff on his cheek. Forehead to forehead.

His mind begins to drift once again.

“Sorry.” Alex says, his gaze drifting from Brian’s eyes to his lips. Soft. Inviting, though he’s imagining the slightest of smiles there. “I’m just tired.”

“You should get some rest, Alex.” It’s genuine concern, genuine caution, invitation, invitation, invitation—

Alex leans in and kisses him.

It’s not what he always imagined it would be, exactly. It’s a lot more abrupt, for one, dilated and destroyed all at once. He feels the softness of Brian’s lips on his own, the slight sensation of his scruff on his jaw, his glasses bumping against his friend’s nose and it is heavenly, heavenly, paradise with an unfamiliar taste on his tongue—but in the same instant he feels harsh hands shoving him back to the other side of the couch rather quickly, forcing him to jerk back and slide right off of the couch instead of staying put where he is beside him. The fall is sharp and short and the pain spiking up his tailbone forces him back to reality.

“What the fuck, Alex.” It’s a hiss, sort of. Brian standing above him with his hands raised slightly. Not to lash out, but to defend himself, Alex thinks. Like he’s trying to coax him down. Alex pushes himself up on an elbow, breathing out slowly.

“I’m sorry.” He says. Elation, adoration, infatuation, elevation—idiocy, idiocy, impulsivity, disgust—Why would he do that? Why would he—why would he think that was okay? “I—I’m sorry.” It had felt so lovely. The culmination of a dream. But—foolish. Really foolish. Brian had a boyfriend, Brian wasn’t interested in him, Brian had never been interested in him- would never be interested in him- would never—isn’t and would never—

“You can’t—I don’t think of you like that.” Brian’s tone is terse, like he wants to yell, and Alex thinks he’s never heard Brian yell before at all. He wonders what it sounds like. Just as beautiful, offers one part of his mind. Disgusting and vile, says the other. He doesn’t know which part is himself. “I don’t think of you like that, and I have a fucking _boyfriend_—”

The anger is familiar. An old friend, but not. Something new that’s rooted itself harshly somewhere in his chest and is blooming further with every inhale and exhale, changing inside of him into something that tastes like bile on his tongue.

“I know—” Alex stumbles to his feet, leaving the script on the ground, stepping back slowly. Brian’s hands curl slowly into fists and their eyes meet again but any sort of pleasure Alex had been feeling is gone now, replaced by shock, repulsion, disgust and discomfort. “I know, I didn’t—I don’t—I’m sorry.”

Is he?

He doesn’t think he is, in truth. There’s a level of satisfaction as his tongue swipes across his lower lip. Unfamiliar taste. He’d always wondered. Now he has his answer.

“You should leave.” There’s a slight tremble in his tone. His nails are digging into his palms. Does he hold his lover that tight? “Now.”

“Yeah. I. Yeah.” Alex steps back, slowly. He regrets, for a moment, not bringing his camera. The urge to cough is intense and uncomfortable in his chest and the—the guilt—the discomfort, the sickness in his stomach—why would he do that? Why would he ever--? That’s not… that’s not him. It was just a crush. It wasn’t. “I’m sorry.”

“Please leave.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Alex. Get out.”

“I—”

He doesn’t remember what follows. Lost time isn’t out of the ordinary anymore. Just more pages added to his wall.

EXEUNT KRALIE.

INT. ALEX’S HOUSE – WITCHING HOUR.

It’s grief, he thinks. That’s what usually comes with break-ups. Grief. He collapses into bed and feels sad and angry and appalled and nauseous and embarrassed because that was the wrong thing to do. That wasn’t even what he set out to do, nasty impulsivity whispering nasty things in his ear and making him—what, act like an idiot?

Yeah.

Yeah, what else was new.

The thing in the hallway is standing right in front of his doorway and Alex is staring intently at it because he thinks he’s beginning to understand, beginning to taste enlightenment more than anything else, and the thought terrifies him. His pillow sticks to his face with drool and tears and snot as he pushes himself up onto his hands and knees and bites his tongue to keep himself from coughing. They don’t see it. He does. So there’s something. There’s something. There’s—

It wasn’t even a break-up because Brian was never interested in him in the first place. It was a mistake that Alex acted on, an impulse, rather, that’s the word—it was a stupid impulse because he wanted to kiss him, because he wanted to have his arms around him, because he was daydreaming about laying his head in Brian’s lap. Because he felt angry and jealous and something like fear to go along with the anger in his chest, because they were being watched, because he wasn’t alone the way he wanted to be when he was editing and reviewing footage anymore, because the headache won’t go away.

It’s grief. Grief for a break-up that wasn’t even his. And the thing standing in his doorway seems less than bothered by this, its head tilted slightly to one side as Alex’s vision blurs and flickers like a broken camera, picturing shards of glass in front of his gaze because his glasses aren’t on and he can barely see it anyway. He doesn’t want to put his glasses on, because the thing in the doorway seems to be suited to a lack of sight, to blindness—

Maybe he should gouge his own eyes out.

INT. COLLEGE CAMPUS – DAY.

“You’re not doing it right.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be telling me how to do it?”

“You could read the script, right? Otherwise you’re wasting my time.”

“Right. You’re doing great, Mr. Director, feeling really valued here.”

Maybe he should tell her she could be more dramatic if he broke her knees with a baseball bat.

EXT. FOREST TRAILS – DAY.

“That’s not the line.”

“It’s what you wrote, Alex.”

“No, it’s not, I changed it last time we talked. Does nobody listen to me?”

“I don’t know, you sure do seem to like talking to yourself all the time.”

“Memorize your damn lines.”

He doesn’t want to feel these thoughts. Doesn’t—doesn’t want to be violent, doesn’t want to hurt anyone. But it wouldn’t be hard to do, out in the woods. One sharp stick, maybe, one sharp jab—

He’s scared.

INT. SETH’S APARTMENT – WHAT TIME WAS IT AGAIN?

“Where did you put my fucking tapes?”

“They’re right—”

“Why did you—Why did you move them?! I need those, asshole, I don’t—”

“Alex, calm down—”

“Don’t fucking _touch_ my goddamn _tapes!_”

He’s scared and sick, he thinks, and something’s very wrong.

EXT. ALEX’S CAR - WHO’S KEEPING TRACK?

INT. BRIAN’S HOUSE – NOT ALLOWED.

INT. BRIAN’S CAR – HE HATES YOU.

EXT. SARAH’S YARD – BASTARD IDIOT.

EXT. TIM’S APARTMENT – JEALOUS FOOL.

INT. BRIAN’S HOUSE – YOU HATE HIM.

INT. ALEX’S HOUSE – NOBODY KNOWS ANYMORE.

The camera’s perched on his nightstand, pointed right towards the bedroom door, because it’s woken him up more than once and he knows it’s coming again. Whatever it is. This sickness crawling around on the inside of his skull and dragging glass shards along the inner walls of his organs. He’s being followed. He’s being watched. There’s no running away from it and there’s no seeing it, he thinks, though—though.

His head hurts.

The guilt’s still heavy in his chest.

He’s sick. That’s what it was suddenly, something very wrong and a sickness brought on by the thing that stands in his doorway when he’s trying to sleep. That’s all it feasibly could be, as he’s clutching onto his pillow and shivering under three layers of blankets and feeling a tension in his chest that feels like a rock, somewhere between his heart and his lungs. Alex is breathing heavily as he nestles his face into the fabric, tasting copper on his tongue—

A cough.

Another cough.

A third, harder, this one coming with a flood in his mouth that tastes rancid, drool and phlegm that he chokes on as he stumbles to his feet, not bothering to reach for the camera. A reflex tells him he should grab it, but he already feels blood and drool dripping from his mouth onto the carpet beneath him as he struggles to walk straight and drags himself to the bathroom. Alex only just manages to flick the light switch on. He coughs hard, dizzy, bent over the sink and fumbling for the faucet as he all but vomits into the porcelain. He presses his hands onto either side of it and coughs hard, spitting up blood and phlegm and choking on it as it swirls down the drain.

He’s sick. He’s—he’s sick. He needs to go to the hospital, he thinks, in the sluggishness of his thoughts. Needs to call somebody and try to get help but his thoughts are only lingering on—on. On an angel, brown hair turned blonde in sunlight. His eyes burn and the guilt intensifies. He coughs harder, spits into the running water and feels tears mixing with the mess down his cheeks. He’s sick. He needs to call somebody for help. Needs to do something about this headache, needs to sleep it off, needs to—

He lifts his head and sees the thing in the mirror. Standing just behind him, close enough that if it breathed, he would feel it on his hair. Alex jolts on reflex, despite himself, and sends himself right into his arms—

Only there’s not anything there. Only instead of falling into the arms of the thing that has taken root inside of him he slips, stumbles, and collapses against the wall in his tiny bathroom, gasping for breath as his head collides with the drywall and his ass lands hard on the tile. He scrabbles for a hold on the smooth surface under him, eyes wide and chest heaving as he struggles to breathe.

He can’t breathe and he can’t see, his vision going dark, or the lights going out, one or the other and Alex is reaching instead for his own face, feeling nails dig into the skin under his glasses, picturing digging his fingers into his eyes in order to pull them out and get at the sudden startling pain in his head, pictures reaching into his chest and breaking his rib cage open to make it easier to breathe, pictures snapping bones and viscera and blood down his chin and he sobs, sobs hard, baring his teeth against it and clapping both hands over his mouth.

He’s sick and he needs help.

His phone’s in his pocket. He landed on it. He can feel a new crack in the plastic that wasn’t there as he fumbles for it, the flickering lights giving him a good look at the thing standing above him. His hands are trembling and the taste of blood won’t leave him, the sensation of hands in his ribcage too real to be imagined, and yet all he can think of is the right number to dial as he stares up at it, at the unblinking emptiness, and thinks—

There’s some quote about this. He who stares long into the abyss, or something, something he’d read before and liked—

The phone rings against his ear and Alex is shaking violently, struggling to breathe, listening to the dial tone and praying. He doesn’t—he doesn’t entirely know what to, exactly. It’s a reflex, a begging in the back of his mind that he guesses becomes more realistic and more up front, desperation and panic because it was only natural to turn to something like that when he’s so certain he’s about to die.

The phone rings.

And rings.

And rings.

“Brian,” Alex croaks.

It rings.

And it rings.

And it rings.

“Please pick up,” He wheezes.

It rings.

And it rings.

And it rings.

“I’m sorry,” He tries. “Really sorry. Please.”

The line shuts off.

Alex shuts his eyes and curls into himself.

The thing standing over him shifts a little nearer.

\---

INT. ABANDONED BUILDING – YEARS LATER? DAY? WHO’S STILL COUNTING?

Alex comes to with his wrists tied to the chair behind his back, twisted in a way that feels like his shoulders are about to pop out of their sockets.

That, paired with the pounding headache, makes it difficult to lift his head; he still does, though, jerking upright from unconsciousness in the same instant he wakes because he knows the threat prickling at the back of his neck by heart. Like cold hands around his throat have stirred him he yanks himself with a grunt—the rickety chair beneath him drags messily against the floor and proves he will not be moving anywhere without it, so Alex instead inhales deeply and holds it, gathering his bearings.

Not the first time he’s woken up somewhere without remembering how he got there, and not the first time he’s woken up feeling like he’s being watched. He works his wrists uncomfortably against his bindings. Zip ties wrapped thoroughly around his wrists and then to the chair he’s stuck against. A cursory tug on his ankle proves the same for his feet, and he grits his teeth in frustration.

“It was bait.” Alex says, out loud, fixating on the smudge on his glasses. Somebody’s thumbprint against the very edge, like they’d been shoved back onto his face somewhat carelessly. “You baited me.”

He doesn’t need to look to know the thing behind him is smirking.

“You feel good about that?”

There is no reply, and Alex tilts his head forward, grinding his teeth together once more. He shouldn’t expect anything more from the hooded man, he knows, because this bastard’s been threatening him in one way or another for a lot longer than Jay’s been sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong. It’s poetic in a way, since he’d done the same thing previously, a two-act play of head trauma and waking up somewhere you really don’t want to be.

“Using my own tactics against me is cliché, you know.”

Again, not another word, and Alex scoffs.

The hooded man standing behind him places the barrel of his own weapon against the back of his neck and Alex doesn’t so much as flinch when the cool metal rests there, keeping his position perfectly still.

“Do it.” The challenge is laid at the feet of his adversary and Alex’s eyes rest on the dirt in front of him, drawing his attention away from the smudge on his glasses. “You went to all this trouble. Why not?”

A crackle of static interrupts the scene, a sound in both of their ears that makes the gun in the hooded man’s hand twitch, along with an unceremonious thud and what Alex would describe best as a _snarl_ from the next room over. The barrel of the gun pressed against the back of his neck drifts lower, slightly, and withdraws—he recognizes it as the hooded man turning slightly towards the doorway to his left. Alex’s attention is instead on the presence at stage right, something dark gathering itself in the far corner, out of position of the sunlight.

All he has to do is wait. After all, his enemy here does happen to have a flair for the dramatic that matches his own, and he’s not about to make himself easy prey by way of a pipe to the head and a set of zipties. He’d admire him, if it weren’t disruptive to the rest of his agenda. It takes someone who really has an _interest_ to put so much effort into hunting him down, and there’s some sensation of pride stirring somewhere in his chest as his eyes fixate on the empty spot between his feet. He tastes blood on his tongue and feels a throbbing at the back of his head. He must be bleeding. The hooded man hit him too hard not to be. Alex leisurely pictures a crack in his skull and runs his tongue across chapped lips, breathes out slowly.

The gun returns, placed right back against the nape of his neck and Alex closes his eyes at the sensation of goosebumps rising across his skin. A smirk curls his lips and he bows his head forward, something warm gathering in the pit of his stomach.

“You really think I don’t know who you are, don’t you?” Alex says, almost absently. Casually. His seething anger is smothered for the moment, tongue pressing against the back of his teeth.

“Doesn’t matter.” The rasp comes from the hooded man in an ugly, grating sound, and for a moment Alex mourns the familiar tone that some forgotten part of him was still hoping for.

“You used your little boyfriend as bait.” Alex replies, closing his eyes. The barrel of the gun against the back of his neck remains cold despite the fact he feels it leeching the warmth from his body, and he knows it’s loaded. He put the bullets in the chamber before he came out here, because he was prepared for a fight, because he knew Tim and Jay were going to be here and he needs to look after them. Because a part of him expected this, he thinks, or hoped for it. “How could it not be you?”

There’s a pause where Alex can’t decide if he should be picturing a smirk or a snarl, because the only sound is the soft breeze rustling the trees outside and the distant sound of a skull gently thudding against concrete from the next room over. Repetitive motion. He can’t blame him, really.

“Do you know me?” Alex’s words aren’t his own. Distant and passive and recalled through some fog of memory. Static and sound in a messy set of videos and he likes the thought of being wanted, for once. For once. “I will always know you.”

The gun presses firmer against him.

“Brian.” Alex says, almost affectionate.

“I am going to kill you.” The hooded man replies.

“Pull the trigger, then.” Alex answers. It wouldn’t bother him if it did. He knows he’s the source of the infection that has spread to his friends, that had turned Brian into this, destroyed Tim so readily that he thinks it’s a small miracle the man’s still alive, driven Jay on an insane goose chase across the southern states seeking for answers he wasn’t going to get. It’s his fault, really, for not being thorough enough. For not making sure that Brian breathing wasn’t just a trick of the light, for not bashing Tim’s skull in with a heavier pipe even if he can’t remember that night clearly enough to know anything beyond the fact it happened, for not snapping Jay’s neck quickly and leaving him to wander. The safest thing to do would have been to go further, to do more, to be quicker and more careful and know that they were well and truly dead. He failed in his plan to keep them from harm. He knows he failed. So he wouldn’t mind it if Brian decided to kill him now, because if anybody was going to finish the job it would be Brian.

The silence stretches on and Alex wonders what he’s thinking. This angle would put the bullet right through his throat and he assumes he’d bleed out. He’s not entirely sure, but if it works like it does in the movie one good shot in that position would probably be enough to make sure he wasn’t a problem anymore. He knows that’s all Brian’s after. Some sort of misguided revenge, some lost attempt to make him answer for what he’s done, but Alex doesn’t feel much guilt. It was his only option. If Brian would sit and talk to him instead of placing a gun against the back of his neck, maybe he could explain himself.

He opens his eyes and tilts his head slightly, pulling at the ties around his ankles for a moment. There’s a sensation here that tells him he’s going to die, but it’s the same kind of sensation he’s been feeling for years now. He thinks he’s desensitized. He must be, by this point, because his heart no longer races in the looming presence gathering in the opposite side of the room. It feels more like a piercing headache in the center of his skull by this point.

The gun hasn’t moved. He hasn’t pulled the trigger yet, either. Is it nostalgia? Some hesitation? He’s never thought of Brian as the kind of man to be content with having blood on his hands, but then, Alex used to be that sort of person, too.

Content’s not the right word. He’s not content. The guilt’s just further away now that he’s managed to justify these things to himself.

There’s static in the corner of his vision as Alex makes to tilt his head slightly. Not much of a threatening motion, as he remains still, doing his best to try and look at the hooded man standing behind him without having the other in his line of sight. He remains in his blind spot. Alex thinks he wouldn’t see him right even if they were face to face.

“You’re wasting my time.” Alex says.

“You’ve wasted a lot more of mine.” The hooded man replies. There’s something like a growl in his voice. Something angry. Something wild. For a moment Alex thinks to mourn—or at least that he should, though he doesn’t think there’s much to gain out of that. He should feel angry. Sorrowful. Should feel something. Anything at all. Brian never sounded like that. Brian rarely got angry, and when he did, it was a cold anger, not… not whatever this is.

He could be reading it wrong, though. That wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for him. His analyses were always wrong somewhere.

“What are you waiting for?” He questions after a moment, curious, and the gun withdraws. “Not going to finish what you started? Looking for a fanfare?”

There’s the sound of running shoes scraping against the pavement, brushing away dirt and leaves as the hooded man steps away from in behind him in order to place himself in front of him. Alex was right to assume he wouldn’t see him well enough; the face is obscured, all black fabric and streaks of red that his brain won’t quite amalgamate into a concrete picture. The hooded man is not kneeling, or bending forward, but he is simply crouched, eye level with Alex. Or, at least, Alex has to assume he is. Hood and all.

“What do you feel?” It’s a raspy hiss, laden with the anger. “Anything?”

“No.” There’s an easy enough answer as the gun presses against his shoulder and Alex braces himself for a wound. “I don’t.”

“You’re a monster.”

“You wouldn’t care either way.”

The gun withdraws, and so does Brian, and Alex thinks he might have liked this kind of attention what feels like so very long ago. He might have liked having Brian in his face that way, might have liked feeling what was both threat and promise and something else entirely, might have liked knowing that for the moment he took center stage. He would’ve reveled in it, once. But now it feels like a joke to him, something not worth laughing at or lingering on. Bad dialogue delivered on a poorly lit stage. There’s a burst of static to the right and the both of them wince, another snarl coming from the other room. He wonders when Tim’s going to make his grand appearance.

The gun is placed against the back of his head this time.

There’s no getting away from this without divine intervention of some sort. He doesn’t think it matters, because he knows the divine intervention is coming. Another sharp burst of static—

The gun goes off within inches of Alex’s ear and it deafens him for a moment. Burst eardrum, he thinks, potentially—the hooded man jolts to one side because of the static and the screeching and there’s an ugly set of coughs from the two of them. Alex tastes blood and bile on the back of his tongue and knows that Brian is doubled over, the gun clattering away. A tie on his wrist breaks, because Alex finally yanks hard enough. The rest follow soon after.

He lunges for the weapon despite knowing he doesn’t need to. The static in his ears is drowned out by a loud ringing that he knows is a result of the firearm going off as his hand closes around it. He jerks around to draw the gun and point it back at Brian, his teeth bared and his body tense—

and instead of the rest of the building he finds the empty forest, his ears still ringing and his hands shaking, his vision blurred. The smudge of a thumbprint remains.

He would’ve liked the obsession, once upon a time. Would’ve liked to be on a pedestal. His trembling hands are lowered to his sides, the gun clutched loosely in one of them, finger on the trigger and chest heaving as he struggles to breathe. The hooded man isn’t Brian anymore, he’s decided; he’s the aftermath of Alex’s own failure, a ruined corpse that was still on two feet because he wasn’t observant enough, wasn’t careful enough, wasn’t thoughtful enough. Didn’t plan well enough. Wasn’t prepared. He regrets that, not taking care of Brian the way he’d taken care of Sarah. It would’ve been better.

His fingers tighten around the weapon. There’s a striking urge to see if the thing would go further than that, if his deity would prevent a bullet strike if he was the one to put it through his skull instead.

Alex lowers himself to the ground gradually, breathing heavily as he makes the decision to wait until the ringing in his ears stops long enough for him to think straight. It doesn’t matter, he’s decided. Doesn’t matter at all. Nothing much does anymore.

The sounds of the birds come back after a little while, and he doesn’t think he’s grateful for it.


End file.
